Otto Mueller

During the era of Nazi rule, Mueller was proclaimed to be a “degenerate” artist, and many works by him were removed from German art institutions. Acquired by the Kupferstich-Kabinett shortly after the end of World War II, this drawing attests to the museum’s attempt to fill in the gaps that had opened in its collection as a result of the Nazi seizures. The vividly colored work depicts three female bathers in a verdant landscape, rendered in Mueller’s intentionally schematic and two-dimensional style. It exemplifies the artist’s lifelong interest in idyllic pastoral settings, where the perfect unity of humanity and nature could be achieved.